The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current, June 24, 2002, Image 5

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    s P0R]jj A TlON
1 Tali the battalion
Monday, June 24, 2002
Wildfires continue to burn in western U.S.
\£m SHOW LOW, Ariz. (AP) — Two
mammoth wildfires raged unchecked
Brough paper-dry forest Sunday,
2 20 seir th reatening to join in a 50-mile-long
it clair line of flames and burn right into this
>ts. town of 7,700 people,
ineup iy The blazes already had destroyed
v erse sii about 185 homes elsewhere in the high-
was pb lands of eastern Arizona, and as many
whentjjl 25,000 people had fled more than
m (Uni half a dozen towns, including Show
Amenc.: Low.
iguay) T “It’s gut-wrenching watching this
'ugoslav plume of smoke come up over us and
Biowing what’s behind it and knowing
s after: wliat it’s going to do to our communi-
iree coiiM,” said Show Low Police Chief John
opresemBorder. “My house is
Mobably going to be one
to be the of the first houses to go.”
h Korea B Firefighters braced to
means Itfend neighborhoods on
or theloBie west side of town,
rst rotirJ “This is going to be a
lamed tjiugh day,” said fire
_ okesman Jim Paxon.
final
irea? \V-
mol Gc.f In west Show Low,
ess WortBhere an estimated 80
J succeBercent of residents live,
ipact. | wall of smoke hovered
he big: Over treetops near the -
exclusive community of
w
“We’re going to get beat
I up pretty hard.”
I in west Show
Its gut-wrenching
watching this plume
of smoke come up
over us and knowing
what it's going to do
to our community.
— John Corder
Show Low police chief
mt. but*
e the fin
lot in or
upset tit
m Tuesi
st.
next >:r
e to pla*
Torreon, a
lated subdivision on a golf course.
I “Torreon’s going to be a wasteland
ich Goif'hen this is over,” said police officer
the undfAllan Meyer, himself a resident of west
Bhow Low.
I Most of the community was a virtu
al ghost town by afternoon. All the new
cars had been moved off the lot of a
■byota dealership and stores stood
empty. Cars, pickups and RV’s covered
he. ox the parking lot of a K-Mart and Family
ung dot' Dollar, a safehouse of sorts for aban-
se.Wer doned family vehicles.
! The wildfires had burned more than
293,000 acres by Sunday. Afternoon
temperatures were expected to reach
the 90s, with single-digit humidity and
shifting wind that was expected to fur
ther fan the flames.
As flames overran Heber-
Overgaard, 35 miles west of Show Low,
on Saturday, firefighters were able to
save a large number of houses with help
from air tankers that had dropped
/Tame-retardant slurry directly on
fooftops Paxon said. Seventy homes
purned there, he said.
; Firefighters likely couldn’t stop
Hlames from entering Show Low, either,
said Larry Humphrey, the incident
commander. Their plan called for
pulling back, letting the fire hit and
then fighting where they could.
pan
I
“We’ll spend our time on the ones
we can possibly save,” Humphrey said.
“It’s a tough call, but we have to make
it.”
Show Low’s residents were ordered
out late Saturday after flames leaped a
firebreak that crews had bulldozed
about eight miles west of town, and the
3,500 residents of neighboring Pinetop-
Lakeside followed early Sunday.
The two wildfires had earlier over
run parts of the evacuated towns of
Pinedale and Clay Springs, and late
Saturday, flames jumped a bulldozed
firebreak and entered Heber-Overgaard,
an already-evacuated community of
2,700.
The area, popular
with hikers and
Phoenix-area residents
who have built second
homes to escape the
desert heat, is covered
with pinon, juniper and
pine trees made explo
sively dry by years of
drought.
Paxon said prelimi
nary counts showed
1 15 homes had burned
in towns just west of
Show Low in a wild-
fire that exploded in
size after starting Tuesday. It was
thought to be human-caused, although
authorities didn’t know whether it was
an accident or arson. Seventy others
were burned by a smaller fire started
Thursday by a lost hiker trying to signal
for help.
More than 3,000 evacuees had regis
tered at a shelter in Eagar, where cots
covered the artificial turf of a domed
high school football stadium, said
National Guard Maj. William Wilhoit.
Show Low resident Melissa Walker
had parked her motor home outside the
Eagar shelter.
“This is probably going to drive
everybody out,” Walker said of her
hometown. “Our livelihood depends on
everyone else’s livelihood. The econo
my is going to crash.”
Across the West, 17 large fires were
burning on 721,806 acres in seven
states on Sunday, according to the
National Interagency Fire Center.
In Colorado, crews fought a 67,700-
acre blaze that had destroyed 45 homes
in the southwestern corner of the state.
A larger, 137,000-acre blaze south of
Denver had destroyed at least 1 14
homes and was 60 percent contained.
The National Interagency Fire
Center said about 2,300 people
remained under evacuation orders,
down from 8,900 last week.
KRT CAMPUS
Firefighters from North Teller County mop up hot spots from the Hayman fire in Rainbow Falls Park, Colorado over the weekend.
For Arizona fire evacuees, hope fades as days pass
EAGAR, Ariz. (AP) —
The woman in the plaid sun
dress apologized as she
brushed tears from her face.
For four days, Melissa
Walker had put up a brave
front — for her children, her
friends, herself.
On Sunday that courage
collapsed, trampled by the
savage wildfire on a destruc
tive march toward her home.
“This happens to other
people,” Walker said in dis
belief as she wandered
through a domed football
stadium that had been turned
into a Red Cross shelter 45
miles from her house in
Show Low. “You just never
think this is going to happen
to you.”
She is just one among
25,000 people forced to flee
as two wildfires surged
through drought-ravaged
forests on a collision course
with a half-dozen towns in
eastern Arizona.
Many stayed with family
and friends, or even
strangers who opened their
doors, and most hotels in
towns within an hours drive
of the area were booked. Yet
more than 2,000 people
sought refuge at three shel
ters on the outskirts of the
destruction, anxiously await
ing word.
One by one, they flooded
into high schools turned
temporary homes, clutching
keepsakes they feared could
be all they have left. They
cried and sought comfort in
one another — friends,
neighbors, strangers brought
together by disaster and held
together by hope.
“People are nervous and
teary, not knowing what to
expect — not even knowing
where to go,” said Marilyn
Scher, who left her home in
Pinetop on Thursday morning.
Since then, she has been
helping to register other
evacuees at the Eagar shel
ter, where the displaced
sleep on cots in the middle
of a domed football field. A
large screen TV offers con
stant updates on the fire,
Wildfires threaten to merge
As wildfires continued to bum throughout the west on Sunday, two
Arizona wildfires threatened to join in a 50-mile long line of flames.
The blazes already had burned more than 293,000 acres.
Wildfire acreage
ak 10.000 or less
^ 10,001 to 50.000
Over 50,000
IDAHO
WYO.
*
150 mi
NEV.
UTAH
▲
CALIF.
ARIZ.
* ah
Pacific Ocean £
Current as of June 23
0 150 km
Hayman
^ A'
COLO.
4
* N.M.
Jt
Rodeo
SOURCES: NIFC: Associated Press: ESRI
while a nearby basketball
court provides a much-need
distraction for children.
Walker, 40, had noticed
the darkening sky as she
walked out of a Wal-Mart
store on Tuesday. That night,
as the smoke drifted closer
to Show Low, her family
started packing their
motorhome with photos and
clothes, even business files
from the computer.
Twenty-four hours later.
Walker, her husband and
three teen-age children set
up camp in the parking lot of
the shelter at Round Valley
High School, watching help
lessly as the flames and
smoke advanced on their
town.
al-Qaida appears to be regrouping with or without bin Laden
I WASHINGTON (AP) — Al-
ffiaida terrorists appear to be
^grouping as a lethal threat with
II without Osama bin Laden, con
gressional leaders said Sunday.
1 Lawmakers cited recently pub-
p licized warnings from U.S. offi-
‘ Bals and a bin Laden spokesman
to underscore the persistent dan-
g to'* r from terrorists chased from
)rdinaffl e fr Afghan havens.
as |,o( They appear to be more capa-
ancelefi 6 °f attacking Americans than
gjngB^y were a month or two ago,
GauJaid Sen. Bob Graham, D-Fla.,
I nif' Cllairrnan the Senate
Intelligence Committee. He said
bin Laden might be in Pakistan’s
western tribal lands.
■ NCA Added Sen. Richard Shelby of
hed i Alabama, the committee’s top
NCA!
Republican, “They could hit us
any day.”
The senators offered no evi
dence of an impending attack
other than the uncorroborated
warnings issued lately, including
one that al-Qaida could use fuel
tanker trucks against Jewish inter
ests in America.
But with the approach of
Independence Day, an attractive
target day for terrorists, forebod
ing was heard throughout the
Sunday talk show circuit.
“They would love the symbol
ism” of attacking on July Fourth,
said House Majority Leader Dick
Armey, R-Texas. “We must be
doubly alert on that day.”
It was left to Afghan President
Hamid Karzai to sound a note of
confidence about the progress
made against al-Qaida and the
Taliban both.
“They are a
defeated
force,” he said
on CNN’s
‘‘Late
Edition.’’
“They are on
the run.”
Individuals
might be plot
ting terrorism
but basically,
“they’re crimi
nals in hid
ing.” —
Officials
have not established the authen
ticity of an audio interview made
u
They would love
the symbolism [of
attacking on July
4th.] We must be
doubly alert on that
day.
— Dick Armey
House Majority Leader
public on the weekend in which
bin Laden associate Sulaiman
Abu Ghaith says the
al-Qaida leader and
most other top fig
ures in the network
are alive, well and
ready to attack
again.
“Lot of bravado
there,” said
Democratic Sen.
Barbara Boxer of
California, noting
bin Laden did not
look well at all when
last seen on video.
Karzai said dis-
missively of bin
Laden, “his days are anyway
numbered.”
But Graham, for one, put some
stock in the claims. “It’s not sur
prising that there is a statement
that bin Laden is still alive,” he
said on “Fox News Sunday.”
“That’s the best assessment of
U.S. intelligence.”
Regardless of bin Laden’s fate,
al-Qaida appears to be regenerat
ing, he said, and even the
Hamburg, Germany, cell believed
central to the Sept. 1 1 attacks has
been showing signs of life.
“What we have seen is a dis
turbing pattern of the reformula
tion of al-Qaida and their renewed
willingness and capability to con
duct terrorist attacks.”
Bush administration officials
have pointed to numerous indica
tions of al-Qaida activity but
questioned whether the network
still has the command structure or
communications to plan some
thing from the top.
They believe midlevel opera
tives are having to do their own
hasty planning with whatever
tools they can muster, and the
result could be more frequent
but less sophisticated attacks
than before.
A White House official speak
ing on condition of anonymity
said the administration viewed the
Ghaith remarks as no surprise, but
would not comment on whether
bin Laden may be alive or on the
likelihood of a new attack.
Lawmakers said al-Qaida
does not need bin Laden in
order to go on.
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IMMANUEL & HELEN OLSHAN
TEXAS
MUSIC
FESTIVAL
JUNE 3
MOORES SCHOOL
OF MUSIC
JUNE 24, 2002
UNIVERSITY OF
HOUSTON
TICKETS!
845-1234
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Monday, June 24, 7:30pm
Chamber Concert
Bush Conference Center
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track the music and influences of jazz greats
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